José de Sousa (LEMMA-Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas) will present his paper “Brands under Gravity: Trademark Protection and the Death of Distance,” co-authored with Ismaeel Tharwat (The American University in Cairo).
Abstract: Geographic distance should matter little for trademarking brands. Trademarks are intangible, weightless, and inexpensive to register abroad. Yet cross-border trademark registrations are sparse and skewed toward nearby countries. We document a gravity pattern for intangible assets using a large country-year panel and a structural gravity framework. We then ask whether multilateral policy can reduce spatial frictions. Exploiting staggered accessions to the Madrid System, an international treaty that allows a single application to designate multiple jurisdictions, we find that mutual membership increases registrations and attenuates the distance gradient. Multilateral policy contributes to the “death of distance” in international trademarking.
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